


and ended in Los Angeles

by LilyRosePotter



Series: feel it in my bones [2]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Apocalypse, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 06:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosePotter/pseuds/LilyRosePotter
Summary: Tommy’s never been that much of an optimist about humanity. But in the months he spends in Iowa, seeing people die as he passes through, seeing so many people harming each other instead of working together, he decides that it might not be the worst thing if humanity dies out.He just hopes he can make it home first.





	and ended in Los Angeles

The disease started first. It started and it seemed like it was going to be a massive health crisis, one that the Trump administration was utterly unprepared to handle, but even so it seemed like something they’d pull through.

When he flew to DC, Tommy had expected that the experts he would meet would say they were going to pull through. When he flew to DC, he’d expected that he’d fly home a few days later.

Then the blackout hit the East Coast and with communications down and transportation flickering out as there was no one to staff the planes, the buses, no one to repair the power lines, Tommy started to wonder if maybe, maybe this is something they won’t pull through.

He makes it pretty far in the first few days, cars still on the road, roads still functioning. There’s a bus that takes him from Columbus to Peoria before it reaches a gas station with no fuel to sell. He’s stuck in Illinois for frustrating long days as the state of the country worsens before managing to hitch a ride with a farmer.

And in the cruelest twist of this apocalyptic reality, Tommy gets stuck in Iowa.

_If a person could marry a place, Tommy would marry Iowa_ , Lovett quips in his head.

_This is the future liberals want_ , Dan says wryly while Jon laughs so hard he falls out of his chair.

Tommy loves Iowa. Tommy loved Iowa. He doesn’t love it anymore.

It’s in Iowa that Tommy realizes, no ifs about it, that they aren’t going to pull through this. That the country, as they knew it, isn’t going to survive this pandemic.

It’s in Iowa that he sees how fast the disease has spread. It’s in Iowa that he learns how long it can take to travel just a few miles, when modern conveniences have failed. It’s in Iowa that he learns to assess a farm from the road and tell, with reasonable certainty, whether it’s a safe place to stop and offer a hand in exchange for some food and a place to sleep for the night. Sometimes, he’s wrong.

Tommy’s never been that much of an optimist about humanity. But in the months he spends in Iowa, seeing people die as he passes through, seeing so many people harming each other instead of working together, he decides that it might not be the worst thing if humanity dies out.

He just hopes he can make it home first.

Tommy tries not to think of home too often, or, he tries to focus on home as it was when he left it; Jon and Lovett at their desks, dogs running around their feet, Dan and Alyssa and Cody and Ben’s icons popping up in various slack channels, Elijah popping up with his camera, Travis calling out dumb jokes for Lovett or Leave It and What A Day, Tanya and Sarah keeping everyone in order, the interns wide eyed and laughing, Priyanka and Mukta and Corinne coming up with better and better ideas, growing their company, earnestly trying to save America.

He tries not to think of them now. About how much worse cities must be, with so many people packed close together, the disease spreading like wildfire, the actual wildfires, likely raging unchecked, with looting and violence. About Mukta’s face going pale, about Elijah collapsing like some of the people he’s seen abandoned on the side of the road, about Tanya coughing and fevered.

About Lovett, silent. About Dan, not answering the phone. About Jon, unmoving.

Tommy tells himself a lot of lies. They’re smart, his people. They have access to the best possible information. They’ll keep each other safe. They’ll all be there, when he gets home. When he gets home.

He ignores the fact that there’s no information to be had. He ignores the fact that they’ll be trying to _help_ people. He ignores the fact that the passionate, helpful people he’s met in Iowa… aren’t the ones who are surviving. He tries to forget the growing possibility that he’ll never make it home.

 

***

 

The day he finally manages to hitch a ride that takes him across the Nebraska line is already a good day. Then the truck driver who’d picked him up starts aimlessly flipping through staticky radio stations. “Mostly there’s nothing but sometimes you get lucky. Though a lot of the time it’s just Rush Limbaugh reruns.” Tommy’s not sure whether the bad part of that sentence is the _Rush Limbaugh_ or the _reruns_ but he’s not going to ask. His heart aches with the echo of a wheezing impression and shaking laughter.

Then he hears it, the static broken by “crooked.”

“Stop!” Tommy yells so loud that the truck swerves. “Sorry, I’m sorry, just, can you go back?”

“Harry’s dot com, enter code crooked,” Jon repeats.

“The easiest decision you can make,” Lovett snarks.

They’re there. Lovett and Jon and Dan, bickering comfortably about conflicting reports out of DC, instructing their listeners to “call your Senator if you have phone access, (202)  224-”

“3121,” Tommy murmurs in unison.

“You a fan or something?” the truck driver asks cautiously, like Tommy might yell again.

“You could say that,” Tommy says, as casually as he can manage. They’re okay. They’re okay. They’re podcasting, or, they’re radio show-ing. Tommy is out of Iowa. He might make it home after all.

Tommy spends just two weeks moving through Nebraska, picking up a radio signal whenever he can. He’s made it almost the whole way across the state when, just outside a shitty motel in Gering, he sees a kid on the side of the road, shaking with fever.

Jon’s voice in his head says, _the way we get through hard times is by lifting each other up_ , and Tommy curses him for being such a bleeding heart before stooping to pick up the kid, it’s a little girl who can’t be more than six, and carry her towards one of the broken doors of the motel.

The motel, somehow, still has power. And, it has a clock radio. That’s the only thing that goes right for the next week and a half: while Tommy makes hurried runs to a looted corner store, seeking juices and gatorade and pedialyte; while he tries to get fluids into the sweating, sometimes screaming child, who never wakes enough to tell him her name; while he stares at the weird colored wallpaper and imagines Lovett, in another life, telling stories from the pattern and the splotches on the walls; while the child’s breathing slows and then stops; while Tommy buries her in a grave that’s too shallow.

“We’re in the middle of the apocalypse and Marco Rubio is in Davos.”

“Goddamn it Lovett, do not call it that,” Jon snaps.

“Of course it’s the fucking apocalypse Jon!” Tommy yells at the radio, alone in the dirty, creepy room, before unplugging it, throwing it at the wall, and walking out the door.

 

***

 

Tommy has been in Colorado for a month when Lovett berates him in an ad for being unable to tell time. “I’m trying,” he whispers weakly to the battery operated radio he picked up outside of Denver.

Jon thinks Tommy’s dead. He’s trying to hide it, but he’s not succeeding. Tommy kicks at the empty gas can on the ground in front of him and sticks his thumb out as headlights appear over the horizon.

 

***

 

He’s been in Utah for a week, making shockingly good time down through the desert, on the worst day of the apocalypse.

“Jon you’re- Jon!” Lovett yells, panicked.

Dan’s voice cuts through the resulting commotion, echoing Tommy’s yell of fear. “Guys! Guys?”

“Fucking,” Tommy curses. “Come on Jon.” The signal cuts out. He can’t get it back.

He’ll fucking walk the rest of the way to California if he has to, he needs to get there _now_.

There’s no one on the road. Tommy starts walking.

A few miles down, outside a low building with a single solitary light on, he sees it. It only takes a second of internal debate before he slides into the front seat of the car. For the first time ever, he’s grateful for Lovett’s shitty car maintenance habits because he knows how to use the bent piece of wire on the ground outside to start the ignition.

The car is beat up and rumbly and _stolen_ but it runs and that’s all he needs. It’ll get him closer to home. He can have the philosophical debate about apocalyptic ethics with Dan when he gets there.

Lovett bitches through one Blue Apron ad, Dan’s voice steady on the line, and then never mentions Jon again. Tommy’s heart aches to hold them all, to know who else is sick or gone, or, more accurately, who’s left. He keeps the car stereo on, listening through the static, so that he doesn’t miss a second of them.

The car gets him the rest of the way through Utah. It gets him through Nevada, the shape of the Vegas skyline haunting against the empty sky without the rush of traffic around him. He can’t be more than a few miles from the California line when the car rattles to a stop.

“No no no.” He’s in the desert. Miles from anything. Miles from California. There’s no help coming. But he can’t stop.

Tommy grabs his last gallon of water from the backseat, leaves the radio behind and starts walking. His head is spinning by the time he sees the sign, faded and split from a lightning strike. _Welcome to California_. The end of the world has made it here. But so has he.

He takes his first steps across the line and the sign seems to shake. His vision blurs. The world goes black.

 

***

 

Tommy’s eyes blink open to a cheerful little card on the nightstand in front of him. _Terrible’s Casino and Hotel - Welcome to Jean, Nevada_. His mouth is the driest it’s ever been and his heart is pounding. _Nevada_. He’s gone _backwards_.

For the first time in months, he breaks down, horrible sobs shaking his whole body as a strange voice says, “hey, you’re awake.” It's been half a year now and he's made it almost all the way across the country. However few miles this setback actually is, it feels catastrophic right now, with sand and dirt in his mouth, in his eyes, in every pore. With his throat aching for water, chugging one glass then two, still sobbing.

“You’ve been out for a couple weeks, don’t know how long you were on the side of the road before some good samaritan found you,” the woman sitting by his bed says kindly. Tommy wills himself to sit up, to take the third glass of water she offers, to look around.

He’s in a shitty hotel room, still in the clothes he collapsed in, on top of a cheap comforter. The clock radio blinks 11:40. The clock radio.

Tommy reaches out for it frantically, pressing the buttons to tune it. “Hey, what’s-” she asks, but he shakes his head blindly.

“We’re in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse and I’m advertising underwear to no one! There Jon, I fucking said it, there’s no one left to tell me I can’t. This is the apocalypse and everyone is sick or gone and I’m advertising underwear on the radio.”

Lovett. Lovett’s okay, Lovett’s yelling, Lovett’s breaking down. On air. _No one left_. No one left.

Tommy is left. Tommy has to get there.

“Please,” he begs the woman watching him warily. His voice is so hoarse, no wonder she's looking at him like that. “I have to get to Los Angeles.”

She shrugs a little. “I don’t know hon. There’ve been a steady amount of people through. Someone will give you a lift.”

“When? I need to go _now_ ,” he pleads.

“I don’t know,” she says. She’s still talking but Tommy can’t hear her, the entire world narrowing down to his grief and loss and fear. _No one left. Jon gone, Dan gone, Elijah gone, Tanya gone. Everyone gone._ And Tommy, stuck in Nevada. And Lovett, alone.

He’s not conscious of the time passing, only that time _is_ passing. That his precious limited time to get to Lovett is ticking away. He doesn’t turn the radio on again. All it can tell him is that Lovett’s gone too. That Tommy is truly alone here.

“Hey,” the woman, she runs the hotel, she told him that, shakes his shoulder. “There’s a young man headed for Los Angeles. He says he’ll take you if you can drive for a while. You _can_ drive for a while can’t you?” She looks concerned. Tommy’s heart leaps.

Tommy must seem like a crazy person to this stranger. He can see the weird looks thrown his way. But Tommy doesn’t care. The California sign looks, this time, like it’s mocking him. Tommy presses his foot down on the gas.

They make it to LA in less than three hours, driving fast and silent on empty roads.

Tommy leaves the car and its driver downtown and sets out for West Hollywood on foot. The city is absolutely destroyed, almost unrecognizable as he walks. Tommy’s glad it’s pitch black, two am, according to the car when he left it.

The streets are littered with glass and beams from broken doors and windows. Tommy moves as fast as he can, but finds himself backtracking frequently through the blocked streets.

He’s not expecting someone to come out of the shadows, but he punches without thinking. He’s glad for his reflexes when he gets an answering swing to the jaw, grateful now for the brutal months in Iowa as he knocks the guy to the ground and takes off, running now, heart pounding out of his chest, blood dripping from his split lip.

And then he's in their neighborhood, the sun rising, Tommy passing the abandoned stores of the Grove, passing restaurants they’d spent long hours in, passing the former home of Crooked Media. Tommy only realizes his feet have taken him directly to Jon's door when he's standing in front of it, suddenly terrified to knock.

He’s home. He’s home. He just needs to take that last tiny step.

Lovett opens the door, just a crack at first, then slowly wider. His face goes completely white. “Tommy?”

Tommy’s breath catches in his throat. Lovett, thinner and pale and a little unkempt in a sweatshirt that belongs to Tommy himself, is the best thing he’s ever seen. “Hey,” he whispers lamely, reaching out and pulling Lovett into a tight tight hug.

He hasn’t looked in a mirror but he knows he must look terrible, face bleeding and filthy, body bony and malnourished. He must smell terrible too. But Lovett just squeezes him back, so tight it would hurt if it didn’t feel so good.

“What’s- Tommy!” Tommy looks up into the hallway and into Dan’s smiling face and lets the tears fall. Dan reaches them and reaches around them, tugging Tommy and Lovett into the house and into his arms and Tommy wants to sink into their arms forever, but-

Tommy tilts his face up to look at Dan. “Jon?” he asks, terrified. His voice is so hoarse still that it’s unrecognizable to his own ears.

Dan, Dan smiles.

“Come on,” Lovett says quietly, pulling back, just a little. Lovett keeps an arm around Tommy’s back as he tows him down the hallway to the bedroom.

Jon- Jon is pale and thin and sweating with fever, in his big bed that practically swallows his worn body. But Jon is breathing.

“He’s- it was touch and go, but we think he’s- stable,” Lovett says, still holding Tommy close.

Tommy hears a sob tear through the room before he realizes it’s come from his own mouth. Dan’s steady hands are on his arms and his waist, guiding him to the chair next to Jon.

“You can’t- hey, hold up Tommy, you’ve got to put gloves on, we don’t know if he’s still contagious.”

There are hands on his and plastic sliding around his fingers, but Tommy’s eyes are stuck on Jon until Lovett’s hand guides his hand forward, tangles Tommy’s fingers with Jon’s limp ones. There’s a light pressure on Tommy’s head as someone bends to press their face into his hair.

They’re all here. They’re all alive. Tommy is home.

Minutes or hours or days later, Dan’s hands pull him up from the chair. “You need to shower and rest,” Dan murmurs. Tommy squeezes Jon’s hand one last time and acquiesces. He’s so tired, all the way to his bones tired.

Dan guides him down the hallway to the bathroom. Tommy looks at the familiar tiles, the half empty bottles of the stupidly fancy shampoo Jon uses as Dan’s hands move over him, gently but efficiently taking his filthy clothes to the ground, guiding Tommy’s sore limbs under the miraculously hot water, pressing a gentle kiss to the curve of his shoulder.

When Tommy feels clean for the first time in months, Dan tows him out, wraps a towel around him, Parachute, and takes him to the guest room across the hall from Jon. He leaves the door open.

Lovett is sitting on the edge of the bed with a t-shirt next to him. He stands to tug it over Tommy’s head, runs a hand through his damp hair, cups his cheek. “You’re here,” he marvels as he pulls Tommy down onto the bed, arms holding him close. The mattress sinks as Dan joins them and Tommy lets himself drift off to the soft sounds of Lovett’s monologue, punctuated by Dan’s low chuckle and gentle kisses to his face and neck.

He’s home. He’s safe. He’s with his people.

 

***

 

Jon wakes up two weeks later.

Tommy is sitting next to his bed, not paying nearly enough attention, when Jon practically yells, “Tom!” His voice is hoarse and cracked with disuse and illness, but it’s unmistakably his. His eyes are wide and teary while his mouth moves soundlessly, like he can’t muster any more words, but his lips are repeating “Tom, Tom, Tommy,” and his eyes are bright and clear and lucid and _him_.

Tommy’s up from the chair and sitting on the edge of the bed, arms wrapping around Jon’s frail body, in an instant. “I'm here, Jon," tears rolling down his face, "we're both here. Together."

“Thought you were-” Jon whispers.

“I know,” Tommy says. “You too.” He strokes Jon back as Jon’s face lands on his chest. “Guys!” Tommy calls, knowing Dan and Lovett won’t be too far.

“What’s wrong?” Lovett yells as he skids through the doorway.

“Lovett,” Jon croaks and Lovett stops in his tracks, eyes flickering with joy and hope.

Dan gently pushes past him to claim a seat on the bed on Jon's other side, taking Jon's hand as Tommy pulls back, just a little bit, to let him in.

"Hey sleepyhead," Dan says, soft and affectionate.

Jon smiles wide, winces, and whispers, "you're here."

"Wasn't about to leave Lovett on his own, was I?" Dan says, voice light for how genuine it is.  

Jon laughs weakly. “Lovett are you going to stare at me all day?”

“No,” Lovett says, finally moving from where he’s frozen at the foot of the bed. “You need fluids,” he orders, turning to the dresser to grab one of the bottles of Gatorade they’ve been forcing into Jon while he was semi-conscious. “Drink this, then we can talk,” Lovett’s voice shakes a little as he hovers.

Tommy puts his hand over Jon’s shaking one to hold the bottle steady as he drains it. “Lovett,” Jon whines again. Dan reaches out and tugs Lovett down into the vee of his legs where he’s leaning against the headboard and Jon’s hand reaches out to lace his fingers between Lovett’s.

“You’re all here,” Jon whispers, after a long time of quiet, gentle touching and togetherness. “We can finally face the apocalypse together.”

Dan laughs and Lovett starts ranting immediately, “Oh _now_ it’s okay, sure Jon-”

Tommy just smiles and kisses the top of Jon’s head. For the first time in a long time he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’ll pull through.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always yelling about these idiots on [tumblr](everyonewillsee.tumblr.com)


End file.
